ROANOKE, Va. – Spring’s arrival is drawing more people to downtown Roanoke, and a wave of new businesses is giving them fresh reasons to stay — even as the area continues to feel the sting of recent closures.
Over the past year, downtown Roanoke has lost several beloved storefronts, including Beamers 25, Unleashed and, most recently, Tuco’s Taqueria. For some, the closures came without warning.
Beau Woodlee had just started working at Tuco’s Taqueria when they learned the restaurant was shutting its doors for good.
“I don’t even think I worked there a full week. I didn’t even work a full seven days,” Woodlee said.
They described arriving to work one day to find the lights off and the doors locked.
“When I got there, I saw my manager had called me, so I called her back because when I went there I realized it was closed and the lights are off — what’s going on? And so she was like, they actually shut us down this morning and nobody found out until today,” Woodlee said.
New doors opening downtown
Despite the losses, new businesses have been stepping in to fill the void and inject energy back into the district.
Bison Head Cigar & Lounge opened at the end of last year, giving residents and visitors a place to relax and socialize in the heart of downtown. Owner Jimmy Lewis said the momentum building in the area is hard to ignore.
“Parking has been made simpler, crime has been deterred and driven down, and you got exciting new stuff like, you’ve got us, you got The Exchange, the music venue, and you’ve got the Haven another new restaurant downtown — there’s a lot of exciting stuff happening downtown so I wouldn’t want to miss out on it,” Lewis said.
Just down the street, The Haven opened at the start of this year. The restaurant and bar aims to be a go-to gathering spot for locals, according to managing partner Adam Leffell.
“I think there’s a lot of possibility for Downtown, as we continue to grow, and I think the city’s doing things to revive everything so we’re seeing that foot traffic start to show up,” Leffell said.
Leffell said the vision for The Haven was rooted in community from the start.
“We wanted to have a place that felt very local, so we decided ‘let’s open a place where people can come in, have a drink, something to eat, play some pool if they want to, watch sporting events’ — so that was kind of our main reasoning for opening downtown,” he said.
Kirk and Soul is another new addition bringing both food and live music to the downtown mix. Owner Justin Hayden said the energy in the district is already shifting.
“Downtown Roanoke right now is pretty active with new businesses with the foot traffic now,” Hayden said.
For Hayden, the mission behind Kirk and Soul goes beyond just running a restaurant.
“I want it to be somewhere you can bring your friends and family, just have somewhere to dine and fellowship. Food always brings people together,” he said.
Though each new venue offers a different experience, their shared goal is clear: to restore and reinvigorate the spirit of downtown Roanoke — one storefront at a time.